Whaletown's Black Bear
Cortes Currents
English - September 02, 2020 11:42 - 2.75 MBNews cortes island discovery islands quadra food security energy indigenous nations Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Max Thaysen/Daily News - Whaletown's Black Bear is still on the loose – but its days may be numbered.
This summer, a black bear has made the rounds in Whaletown, eating up fruit, stealing honey, breaking in to a chicken coop and even attacking a pig (according to community reports on the Tideline and Facebook).
The Conservation Officer Service, COS, received reports from several Cortes Islanders about the bear and responded by bringing a trap over to capture the bear.
We spoke with a Conservation Officer named Brad about the situation on Cortes and what the plan is for this bear.
If the COS can intervene early in a bear's career of homestead marauding, then they capture it, tranquilize it, give it an identifying earring and set it free in a distant location. If the bear returns to human spaces, they may escalate the human response.
Once a bear begins entering structures, the COS says it must be killed. Relocating a bear with that level of habituation and fearlessness around humans is too great a risk to public safety to release anywhere.
Brad said that they are aware that there could be more than one bear in the area and they rely on eye-witness testimony to identify the offending bear. The bear they catch must match the descriptions before they put the bear to death.